Hospital ER use is 55 percent higher than design

Danbury Hospital
's emergency department is designed to handle about 45,000 patients a year. This year, it's expecting to treat about 70,000.

"It's a perfect storm,'' said Dr.
Patrick Broderick
, the chief of emergency medicine at the hospital.

This trend - being seen on the state and national level as well - is forcing the hospital to take several steps to better serve the patients who arrive at the ER, including doing extra triage work near the reception and admitting area and creating a new space - an Observation Medicine Program - where hospital staff can observe patients for several hours without admitting them.

Broderick said the hospital is now looking again at a major renovation of the emergency department.. The hospital had completely revamped the emergency department in 1998.

"At that time, we estimated the most patients we'd see in a yeare would be 40,000 to 45,000,'' he said. "But the number of people we're seeing has increased well beyond that.''